Student Spotlight: Jennifer Frame, Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student
by Cheryl Halle | Tuesday, Jul 26, 2016
Jennifer Frame, left Ohio in 2011 after graduating from high school and joined FAU as a freshman August of that year. While at FAU she was a volunteer note-taker for the Office of Students with Disabilities; a member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society; participated in the Human Powered Submarine club, winning the fastest female pilot award at the 12th International Submarine Races; and received two internships — one at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts after her junior year, and the second at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Panama City Division, in Florida after her senior year.
Along with fellow senior design team members Frame successfully modeled, built, and tested an autonomous ocean glider the team named Sea SLUG – Slow Linear Underwater Glider. The glider could traverse autonomously underwater at a user-programmable commanded range of depths of at least 20 meters for a minimum of two complete cycles.
Frame received her bachelor of science in ocean engineering degree Summa Cum Laude in May 2015 and then started work on her master’s degree.
While working on her graduate program, and as a Research Assistant in the Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering Frame also found time to tutor students through the Division of Engineering Student Services and Advising.
Frame’s graduate research focused on the design, construction, control, and testing of a novel self-contained soft robotic vehicle nicknamed the JenniFish. The JenniFish is a jellyfish-like robot that could be adapted for a variety of uses, including: low frequency, low power sensing applications; swarm robotics; surveillance and monitoring the ocean environment; ocean floor mapping; a STEM classroom learning resource, and more.
Frame, 23, presented her research titled, “Self-Contained Soft Robotic Jellyfish with Water-Filled Bending Actuators and Positional Feedback Control” in July and will graduate in August 2016 with her Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering.
When asked Frame had no plans to obtain her doctoral degree at this time since she has already obtained a position with the Caderock Division of the NSWC in Bethesda, Maryland and plans to start work after graduation.
To see the JenniFish in action go the following video links:
Frame's thesis advisor was Dr. Erik Engeberg, Associate Professor in the Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering.
For more information please contact the department at ome@fau.edu.